Escape from New York: Foley ad targets Big Apple

Updated 10:56 pm, Thursday, November 14, 2013

Republican Tom Foley is giving new meaning to the term "outer boroughs."

Foley's exploratory committee for governor -- emphasis on Connecticut -- is out with its first commercial of the 2014 campaign.

Its target audience? New Yorkers.

The 30-second spot opens with footage of a newspaper press run and shows the front page of a recent edition of the New York Post with the headline, "Back in the USSR," and a photo of newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"Hey New York City, with your new mayor, I know many of you are thinking about leaving," Foley speaks into the camera.

Foley proceeds to warn viewers that Gotham is about to take a left turn with de Blasio, much like Connecticut did when voters chose Democrat Dannel P. Malloy over Foley in 2010.

Though he hasn't formally declared his candidacy, Foley acts very much the part in the video, saying that Connecticut will once again be a desirable place in the Northeast when it elects a new governor next year.

New Yorkers can ride it out for the next year and then relocate, he suggests.

"Then come join us in Connecticut under new leadership heading in a better direction," Foley says.

"Tom Foley continues to pursue the most bizarre political strategy known to man," the party said in a statement Monday. "At the rate he's going, he won't even be his party's nominee, much less become governor."

The commercial is airing on NY1 and Fox in New York and cost around $2,000, according to Foley, who stood by the theme in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Newspapers.

"They need to get a sense of humor," Foley said of Democrats. "It doesn't surprise me that they don't understand the humor."

Foley said there are parallels between de Blasio and Malloy, whom he characterized as presiding over misguided economic policies.

"It's an economic disaster," Foley said of Connecticut.

Things to do in a dry town: Vote

There's something in the water in Connecticut's last dry town.

For the second consecutive election, Bridgewater had the highest voter turnout of any municipality in Connecticut at 77.39 percent, according to the secretary of the state. Hartford finished dead last with a turnout of 5.21 percent. The statewide turnout was 31.43 percent.

Barely pushing 1,800 residents, the southern Litchfield County hamlet best known for its annual country fair and as the home of Mia Farrow, elected a new first selectman for the first time in a generation.

Curtis Read will succeed fellow Democrat Bill Stuart as the town's chief elected official after winning a three-way race for a job held by Stuart for the past 31 years.

In 2012, Bridgewater was awarded the Democracy Cup by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill after a whopping 94.75 percent of registered voters cast ballots during the presidential election.

"Municipal elections usually have lower turnout figures than state or presidential elections, even though the impact of the decisions made by those elected to local government is huge in the community," Merrill, Connecticut's chief elections official, said Wednesday. "Many races were decided by just a handful of votes, and we had a number of recounts as a result, which shows once again how important it is to do your civic duty and cast a ballot. I also want to praise our local election officials for accommodating all of the new voters in Connecticut who used their new right to register and vote on Election Day. From everything we are hearing, Election Day registration went very smoothly in 2013, and we look forward to even more voters being welcomed into the democratic process next year."

In the New London County town of Griswold, which is named after Connecticut's governor from two centuries ago, Roger Griswold -- not the bumbling food additives engineer who took his family to Wally World -- a recount is underway in the first selectman's race.

Griswold is one of 14 Democratically controlled municipalities that flipped on Election Day to the GOP, which lost 13 municipalities. The Democrats also picked up two towns that were previously controlled by third parties or unaffiliated office holders.

Republicans can exhale. Skulczyck doubled his margin of victory to two votes, with the final tally being 854 to 852 following the recount, state GOP Chairman Jerry Labriola Jr. told Hearst.